With the restored cottages behind them, a couple takes a morning stroll on the beach at Crystal Cove State Park in Laguna Beach. ///ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Slug: crystalcove.031116, Day: Friday, March 11, 2016 (3/11/16), Time: 9:33:43 AM, Location: Laguna Beach, California – – MARK RIGHTMIRE, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
By LAYLAN CONNELLY | [email protected] | Orange County Register
Step onto the sand at Crystal Cove, and you’ll be transported back in time.
It’s a snapshot of what ocean towns up and down the California coastline looked like in the ’20s and ’30s, some of the cottages built by vacationers with whatever materials washed up on the beach so they could create permanent homes.
Now, visitors entering the area will know the Crystal Cove cottages’ historic significance with two plaques that greet beach visitors walking into the park. Officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony this week to unveil the plaques that tout the cottages’ status as a state historic landmark — designated in 2013 — and its standing on the National Register of Historic Places, established in 1979.
“We’re proud of this being a historic district and we’re proud it’s been recognized on the national and state level,” said Eric Dymmel, sector superintendent of State Parks. “It’s only appropriate it be prominently displayed so people are aware they are entering into a historic district, and it really is a special place. Not only for us now, but it has been for decades in the past and for decades in the future.”